Goal Group is the global leader in withholding tax reclamation and securities class actions recovery services and has a growing global client base that includes some of the world’s most prominent financial institutions and investment firms. Amongst other due diligence activities, these clients regularly audit Goal to ensure the organisation has a clear approach to business continuity.

As Goal Group’s managed service provider, BJSS enables the company’s long-term business continuity. We developed an IT architecture that allows all its staff to securely access its applications, services, and data over the internet – regardless of their location.

“Our BCP project has been an outstanding success enabling us to have full remote-working capability across 3 continents without any interruption or negative impact on our processing and service delivery. Indeed, we have been complemented by one of our major clients on the seamless nature of our move to remote working when lockdown was imposed. Without this technology, we would not be able to sustain our business.”

(Stephen Everard, CEO, Goal Group)

The Challenge

Like all FinTech organisations, Goal is regularly audited by its clients and prospects to assess the company’s approach to business continuity in the event of a disaster.

While most of Goal’s applications were already in the cloud, a key driver to business continuity, there was still some infrastructure in place at Goal’s headquarters in Croydon. This infrastructure was crucial to Goal’s operations. It prevented its employees from accessing all the company’s services, applications, and data remotely. This could have had a devastating impact on Goal’s ability to provide its services in the event of its staff not being able to access the Croydon office. As a result, some of Goal’s clients and prospects were concerned about the company’s approach to business continuity.

Furthermore, there was a desire amongst Goal’s staff to be able to work remotely and for the company to have flexibility with regards to its office premises.

Working with the BJSS Managed Service team, Goal needed to further modernise its infrastructure. This would enable its staff to use their company laptops to securely access all core applications, services and data over a standard internet connection, regardless of their location. Additionally, it would allow the BJSS Managed Service team to remotely maintain and support Goal’s laptops. Ultimately, this would result in Goal moving out of its Croydon office and into a remote working model.

The Solution

We commenced the project by conducting a full audit of Goal’s existing equipment before designing an implementation plan that would enable remote working. Given the scale of the task, the implementation plan followed a phased approach to mitigate risk. This would be carried out by a virtual BJSS team in Leeds and Bristol, and was delivered using cloud services such as AWS Client VPN and Directory Service and Azure services such as Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory. The implementation plan included the following phases:

  • Migrated the remainder of Goal’s core applications and data from its on-premise infrastructure into AWS
  • Implemented a remote device management solution that remotely configured all Goal’s laptops with a standard build, aligned to their policies
  • With the laptops configured and all of Goal’s applications, services and data in the cloud, the company transitioned to remote working ahead of the Covid-19 lockdown
  • We then decommissioned nearly all Goal’s on-premise legacy systems, and the group (temporarily) moved out of its Croydon office

Benefits

Business survival and continuities

By adopting a BJSS Managed Service in the years before this project, Goal already had the foundations in place to rapidly transition into a remote working model. Crucially, it enabled the company to work remotely ahead of the Covid-19 lockdown. Without this model in place, Goal’s service would have been severely impacted, and its business put at significant risk. Now all the company’s applications, services and data are securely hosted in the cloud, its staff can access them from anywhere, at any time. This has made Goal more resilient than ever before and has created a clear approach to business continuity and disaster recovery.

Secure remote accesss

All of Goal’s staff around the world can now access the company’s applications, services, and data remotely via a secure VPN on their company laptops. This has helped to boost morale amongst staff who can now work in a flexible, remote working arrangement. The company’s applications are fully managed and improved in the cloud, creating a seamless user experience. Additionally, new joiners can get up and running on the Goal network simply by logging onto their device for the first time and allowing the device to automatically configure.

Cost savings

Following the complete migration of Goal’s applications, services and data to the cloud, we have decommissioned the vast majority of the company’s legacy infrastructure. This has saved Goal a considerable amount of cost that was associated with running the on-premise systems. As part of our Managed Service for Goal we have always focussed on optimising the cost of their cloud services as an ongoing activity. The temporary closure of Goal’s physical offices has also helped the company to reduce costs on office space and points to a future model where all Goal operations and staff interactions could be managed remotely with no reliance on physical premises or infrastructure. These cost savings, coupled with its ability to continue serving its customers and winning new business, has meant that Goal is now more profitable than ever before.